


Grounded

by stormbourne



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blow Jobs, I'm surprised airports is a tag tbh, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:15:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7726522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormbourne/pseuds/stormbourne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between Houston and Honolulu, Jake English and Dirk Strider get the news that their next flight has been canceled and they're going to have to wait until tomorrow to fly out. Jake's initially enthusiastic. Dirk's already exhausted. Ten hours in an airport terminal is a long goddamn time.</p><p>Ridiculous real-world-AU written for Dirkjake week 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grounded

It really wasn't fair to take it out on the poor airport staffer. God knew she had a line of twenty other people behind him. One of the couples had a baby with them, which coincidentally picked that exact moment to begin making a noise somewhere in the uncanny valley between screaming and crying, where it wasn't either one and yet somehow was both. Some old dude a bit behind them complained -- deliberately loudly, Dirk was sure -- that it was never like this ten years ago; airlines always ran on time and the staff knew to just say yes sir and sorry sir. Televisions played news at a muted volume, one screen showing correspondents bickering over politics while another showed sports commentators bickering over coaching styles. Over all of the din, a vaguely pleasant female voice chimed in on the speakers strewn throughout the airport: _The Transportation Security Administration would like to remind you to keep a close watch on your bags and carry-on items at all times. Do not leave bags unattended …_

Jake, standing behind him, started to whistle. The tone was a bit off-key, which meant he was getting anxious. The crowd, probably.

"What do you mean, the next fucking flight out is at 8 AM?" Dirk asked.

The woman looked sharply up at him. Dirk wasn't sure if it was because of the tone or the cuss word, but assumed, for safety's sake, that it was both. She was a little frazzled-looking, but then he was at least the tenth person to talk to her after it was announced that the flight had been canceled due to weather. Not the weather here, oh no -- it was a beautiful evening outside, lights of the city twinkling against the mountain skyline as the darkness of the night sky set in now that sunset was well and truly over. Dirk imagined it was pretty nice out there, for a city that was supposed to be an hour-long stopover between flights. Oh no, the weather in Honolulu was the problem. Thunderstorms for miles that weren't supposed to clear out all night. Not like that mattered. This was apparently one of those shitty airports that didn't have flights after 11 thanks to city noise regulations. 

"I'm terribly sorry," she said. He was pretty sure at this point that airlines trained their attendants to start every sentence with that. "But any flights to Honolulu have been grounded. It's not just our airport. I could, of course, get you to Los Angeles, if you'd like, but you'll still be waiting until morning." 

"What's the fucking point of even going to Los Angeles, then?" Dirk groused.

"Watch your language," snapped a grown man from somewhere nearby. "Children are listening." 

Dirk managed, as he turned, to at least not give the guy and his bratty six-year-old daughter the shit-eating grin that they probably deserved. "Teach your precocious little fuckwit not to eavesdrop," he said, and turned back to the flight attendant in the midst of the man's horrified squawk.

"LAX is a bigger airport, sir, and you might be able to find better amenities -- " the attendant offered. 

"A lot of good so-called amenities are going to do us at 4 AM," Dirk replied. The man began to loudly complain somewhere behind him. "Look, do you have hotel vouchers?"

"Well ..."

"You don't have hotel vouchers." 

"No, sir, we absolutely do, but -- the hotel we've partnered with is booked solid." Her fingers flew over the keyboard. _Just fucking kill me,_ Dirk thought as loudly as he could, trying to beam the message directly to her. _Just fucking get it over with, it'd be more merciful._ Unfortunately, she seemed to be pretty much immune to telepathy. Jake's whistling grew louder and more dramatic. Some theme from a movie, Dirk was sure. "I can certainly pull up some other rooms, but seeing as it's graduation week -- "

"Do I look like I have money for a hotel?" Dirk grumbled. At this point, his chin was all but resting on the counter as the woman typed away at her computer. Was she checking other hotels, or just pretending to in order to deepen Dirk's misery? He rubbed a hand across his forehead, anticipating what came next before she even had the chance to say it.

"It looks like a good room in the city limits will probably run you -- "

"I just said I don't have the money," he interrupted before she could say the number. Jake's whistling had gone Indiana Jones-esque. Perhaps even the actual Indiana Jones theme. It was hard to tell. 

"With all due respect," she said, with the due respect of someone who had dealt with fifty angry customers already, "you have the money for a flight, so I'm sorry for assuming you also have money for accommodations." 

He bit down a snappish reply, if only because Jake was still rocking on his heels beside him, attempting to stay calm in the midst of the swarm. It was honestly a wonder Jake hadn't already told him to be nice to the poor woman, so he tried to channel all the earnest golly-gee politeness Jake usually, _somehow,_ managed to contain within his shell. He could have told the woman he'd already paid for accommodations -- in Hawaii, where they were supposed to already be en route to. He'd been planning for them to toddle on into their room at two in the morning, rest up, and then be on their way out the door by noon to see the island before they hopped on the private jet that Jake's grandma had scheduled for them the next day. Dirk had scheduled their outing. He'd had _plans._

So much for those.

"Okay, look," Dirk said. He propped up his head. He pushed his shades up specifically so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. Then he pulled them back down specifically so he could give the woman a look over the edge of them. "Are you guys doing jack and-or shit for all us assholes about to be cooped up here all night?"

"Would you _please_ watch your language," the second attendant, sitting beside the first, said, and the man she was dealing with -- that same asshole, Dirk noted -- gave Dirk a smug look and patted his brat on the head. 

"Jeepers creepers!" Dirk said. He clutched one hand to his heart. "Zounds! Snails!" At this point he was mostly repeating things he'd heard Jake say one time or another. "Cheese and friggin' rice, sir, my apologies." Then he flipped the guy the bird, and returned his attention to the first attendant. "Cots?" he asked. "Pillows? Blankets? Hell, lady, I'd settle for pointing us in the direction of some free benches, at this point." 

"I can't help you," she replied. 

"It's because of my fucking filthy mouth, isn't it," Dirk said.

She ignored him.

He shrugged, sighed, and turned toward Jake, whose eyes had started to get a little wild and wide. His shoulder nudged against Jake's, and the two of them started an uneven gait back toward the moving sidewalk they'd come from an hour ago. There was a coffee shop back down the terminal a bit. They could at least get a drink. Maybe grab a couple chairs in the corner, where Jake could take a minute to recover out of the eyes of the constant churn of the airport crowd.

"Did she say anything about our luggage?" Jake asked. There was already a sort of ease in his step. Less shaky bounce, more casual grace. It was a good sign, Dirk decided. 

"Not a word," Dirk said. "But this ain't my first time at this rodeo. It's hella gone. Stuck in plane limbo. Refused entrance to luggage heaven, but too pure to be condemned to suitcase hell. We're stuck in these rags until we get to Hawaii." He needed to get the tickets changed, he realized with some annoyance. He'd have to come back once the attendants switched shifts and he didn't have one who'd witnessed him cuss out a self-righteous asshole and his spoiled kid. "Hope you're ready for an airport campout, hotshot." 

Jake turned toward him and, remarkably, a smile spread across his face. He looked almost excited. Dirk tried to smother his affection in dismay, but it was a pointless endeavor. It always was, with Jake English. 

"Well," Jake announced, "it sounds like a hell of an adventure, that's for sure!"

-

The coffee shop was closed.

In fact, it appeared that the entire damn terminal had closed down at 9, which had been less than twenty minutes ago. Apparently having city ordinances against red-eye flights meant that you didn't need to feed the poor saps stuck in the terminal for eight-plus hours. Dirk had even dragged Jake across the terminal, back over near security, in hopes that the fucking Burger King might have been a holdout, but no, even its lights were off and metal grates were drawn over it, just to add insult to injury. Dirk gave the grate a halfhearted kick -- halfhearted just out of respect for his own damn toes -- but Jake, at ease now that they'd retreated to a part of the terminal without people constantly milling by, waved him over to an empty table.

"Here's a tidbit my grandma taught me that I am going to pass on for you to stash away in that iron trap you have settled on your shoulders." Jake talked like he was sharing a survivalist secret, passed down grandmother-to-dopey-grandson for eons and eons, only given after bathing in the waters of a sacred waterfall and climbing to the highest point on his weird private island getaway and maybe swinging around on vines like Tarzan. Dirk tried his very best to look interested, instead of just exhausted. 

The family secret, as it turned out, was granola bars and a pair of peanut butter sandwiches. Jake had the audacity to look smug as Dirk chowed down. He and Jake had gotten lunch before they'd flown out from Houston, but that had been long hours ago. Frankly, Dirk was pretty sure that both the sandwiches had been meant for Jake, who had a remarkable ability to pack it away when he tried. The granola bars, too, but he ripped into one of those as well. It wasn't even the good pricey kind dipped in chocolate. In fact, Dirk was fairly sure it was homemade. It still tasted like fucking manna from heaven. Especially considering the way that not a single one of the vending machines across the hall seemed to have a credit card swipe.

 _All passengers are allowed one carry-on bag and one small personal item,_ the woman's voice droned over the loudspeaker. 

"The secret is," Jake said, still in that conspiratorial tone, "that you _always_ need to be prepared for surprise adventures." 

"This isn't an adventure, dumbshit, it's a disaster," Dirk said. "We're talking Category 5 hurricanes up ins, batten down the damn hatches." The insult in his first statement was defanged by the way it came out fond and well-worn, like a personal nickname for his ridiculous boyfriend. Jake knew it, too, judging by the way he flashed that sparkling overbitten smile at Dirk and winked. He even had the sheer gall to make a pistol cocking noise with his tongue as he did so. "Don't do that." 

"Can't stop the rock, amigo!" Jake said, and unearthed another granola bar. He held up a finger, then rustled in his bag again -- and came out with a pair of water bottles, which he _must_ have bought at the amenities shop while Dirk had been taking a piss. Unless he was just a wizard who'd snuck them through security, which was also a possibility. "Anyway, of course it's an adventure," he said, with mouth half full, as he passed one of the bottles to Dirk. "It's only a disaster if you let it be."

"I really don't think that's how it works." 

"Sure it is," Jake said, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. He took a guzzle from his bottle, and Dirk, grumbling only inwardly for the moment, did the same. "Haven't you ever heard that saying, Dirk? It's only a bad day if you let it be! The world can't make you have a bad day if you refuse to let it!" 

"I don't think that's how that works, either," Dirk said, but he felt his lips quirk a little. He did his level best to smooth them down, but Jake glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and grinned. 

"Ah, no, you did, I saw it," he said, pointing at Dirk with one finger over the rim of his water bottle. "Too late, mister! You're well and truly boned now, I know your secret. There's a capacity to smile somewhere in that dour mug of yours."

"Shit," Dirk drawled, and let his smile grow. Just a little. "Well, you know the rule, Jake, if I tell you I have to kill you. Strider code works the same as CIA code. Classified information." 

Jake's smile grew devilish. "Now, I'm sure," he said, "that I can convince you to spare me." 

"We'll see." He swallowed the last of his granola and took another swig of water. "In any case, we better find somewhere to try and grab some shut-eye. We're gonna have to rise early so I can try and talk to the damn flight crew people again about our tickets." 

"No need to worry about that, compadre mine," Jake said. He cocked and fired a finger-pistol with his free hand. "I am nothing if not an early riser. Besides that, it's not every day you get to camp out in an airport, now, is it! It'll be exciting! Though, I don't think I know any spooky stories about airports."

"Here's a spooky story," Dirk said as he climbed to his feet. He dusted his hands off on his jeans and offered one to Jake, who took it and hauled himself up as well. "Two rad dudes were traveling and got stuck in an airport. Little did they know the airport was actually hell, and they would never escape. They were condemned to wander forever through the halls without so much as a fuckin' burger to sustain them." 

"Sourpuss," Jake sighed, butting his shoulder against Dirk's as they started off back down the terminal.

-

_The Transportation Security Administration would like to remind you to keep a close watch on your bags and carry-on items at all times. Do not leave bags unattended. If someone asks you to carry or transport luggage for them, please inform a TSA official immediately._

"Dirk?"

Dirk blinked out of his daze of half-drowse. It was never real sleep in a setting like this -- he had the strap of his bag twined around his arm tight enough to almost cut off his circulation in the first place, and bundling up his jacket hadn't exactly served as a very good pillow, so he'd instead just chosen to lean back against the wall. The announcements kept knocking him back out of his attempts at sleep, which would have been futile anyway. But he had managed, at least, to haze in and out a little bit over the last half hour.

Jake, apparently, was not quite so lucky.

He was curled up into a tight ball, the sort that Dirk knew meant overload was imminent. At once, Dirk straightened up, fixing his askew shades and running a hand through his hair. Slightly mussed. Not a whole lot to be done for it. He turned toward Jake and nodded, but Jake was staring at the floor. 

"Jake, yo," he said. "I'm up. What is it?" 

"Now," Jake said, and his voice was wavering even though he tried very hard to give Dirk a smile, "now, I don't begrudge this lady anything, but she won't friggin' shut her trap and she's starting to make me a bit crackers and maybe even a tiny bit of cheese on top of that if you know what I mean?" 

As if on cue, the woman's voice chimed in over the speaker again. _The moving walkway is coming to an end in … ten … feet. Please watch your step. The moving walkway ..._

"We can move further away from that," Dirk offered, jerking his head toward said moving walkway. It wasn't even fucking turned on right now, which definitely added insult to injury as far as this whole airport campout thing was concerned. 

"No, it's not just that -- it's all of them, that isn't going to help." Jake's breathing was uneven. Dirk untwined the strap of his bag from where it was knotted around his arm, draping it back over his shoulder. Jake's own backpack was still on. He was looking more like a pillbug by the minute. "I mean when it's not that it's the malarkey about the carry-on bags and when it's not _that_ then she gets right snooty about how you've got to watch your own luggage and you shouldn't take bags from strangers, like Grandma never taught me that sort of codswallop when I was an anklebiter!" He was babbling. It wasn't a good sign. When Jake babbled it meant that he was frazzled and overwhelmed and near the edge of a meltdown, which in Jake terminology, meant he was about to cry. "And when it's not her it's one of the other people paging specific passengers or saying something's lost at the gate or hell fricking knows what else!" 

Dirk made a decision.

"Alright, come on," he said into Jake's continued stream of endless dialogue about how just when he thought the announcements would quit the lady would pipe up again but in Spanish, "I've got a solution." 

Jake blinked up at Dirk as he stood up. His eyes were shining with wetness. "You've got a solution for what exactly?" he asked. 

"Just come on." He helped Jake to his feet, glanced around, and then took off down the terminal. Jake hurried after him. Dirk weaved through the hallways, past abandoned gates and a few with weary-looking attendants still working for some godforsaken reason. The sky outside was pitch-dark, city lights still aglow in the distance, a smudge of clouds barely visible thanks to the moon behind them. The intercom chimed in. Dirk didn't need to look back to know Jake was cringing, shoulders rising up around his ears. 

"Here." 

Jake caught up with him and looked up, eyebrows furrowing. "The bathroom?" 

"You usually can't hear the announcements so well from in there," Dirk said, jerking a thumb toward the door. It wasn't like he was lying. Bathrooms were cavelike sanctums of peace. They didn't usually bother to put loudspeakers inside, and even if there was one right near the door, it usually turned into meaningless white noise once you were inside. "And I'll let you borrow my headphones if you want." 

Jake stared at him, and then, remarkably, a weak smile broke on his face.

"You're telling me," he said, in the sort of voice which meant he was about to burst into either tears or laughter, "that you're willing to camp out in a friggin' _privy_ because I can't take the sound of the dadblasted intercom anymore." 

"It's a restroom, not a privy," Dirk said with mock offense before he clapped his arm around Jake's shoulders and steered him inside amidst Jake's squawks that they meant the same goldarned thing blast it.

It was as empty as the rest of the terminal. A single guy near the sink finished washing his hands and didn't make eye contact as he passed them on his way out. Dirk's scouring of the bathroom revealed exactly what he was hoping to see: A row of empty urinals, and a row of stalls with every single last door open. Nobody here. Good. 

"Really," Jake mused as Dirk passed stall after stall until he found one with a floor that was at least passably dry, that didn't appear to have been used recently and thereby had no apparent stink, "this is a terrible idea, Dirk, what exactly is your master plan here? We fall asleep on the john like a couple of old grandpas who just finished their Sunday sermon? Or are we gonna take one of the handicapped stalls like _true_ scoundrels and deprive some poor gent who needs -- " 

"Nope," Dirk said, and shoved Jake backward into one of the regular stalls before he followed. He let his bag fall to the floor, flipping the latch behind his back, and didn't wait an instant to drop to his knees and look up at Jake. Jake looked faintly befuddled, but when Dirk was below him looking up, his eyes widened, and -- 

"Oh," he said, and his cheeks flushed all at once, all the way up to the tips of his ears. "Oh! Christ alfuckingmighty!" 

"Are you gonna drop trou, or make me do all the work myself?" Dirk said, but even with that, didn't hesitate to undo the button of Jake's shorts. "I thought you were a gentleman, English. Honestly, the sort of lengths a guy has to go to -- " 

"Not so friggin _loud!_ " Jake hissed in a suddenly-embarrassed whisper, but his hands still slid down to undo his zipper. Dirk took it from there, tugging Jake out of his boxers and stroking him quickly. "You seriously mean to do this here?" Jake continued, biting his lip as Dirk worked him over, looking up at him. "In a friggin' latrine, Dirk!" 

"A latrine is usually outdoors," Dirk said, not lowering his voice in the least. He stroked his fingers along the underside of Jake's cock, almost mockingly light. "And yes. I mean to do this here. Did you think I just said, 'hey man, whip it on out' as a joke? Check it out, Jake, it's super fucking funny, right?" Just to be a shit, he dipped his head and licked at the head of Jake's dick.

The sound Jake made was more than worth it. As was the way one of Jake's hands slid forward, fingers knotting in his hair. Bingo. A bingo with a jackpot so big that the ladies at the hall would be murdering each other trying to get to the stage first. He'd give Jake shit for the inevitable mussing of his 'do later. For now, it was time to get down to business.

He'd sucked Jake's dick a lot. If pressed, Dirk wouldn't say it was one of his favorite things to do with Jake, but only because he had a shred of fucking dignity and that wasn't the sort of thing you admitted to in public. It had taken them a few times to get the rhythm of it down, how much pulling was too much and how deep Dirk could take Jake without choking. (He'd managed to train himself into taking more each time, something that Jake always made noises to show his gratitude for.) Jake had sucked Dirk, too, of course -- turnabout was fucking fair play, and all -- but he always said there was a sort of weird passion for it that Dirk had and he didn't think he could match. 

To be fair, he was pretty much right. It was hard to compete with the passion of a guy who had idly fantasized about sucking you off since he'd turned twelve. 

In any case, Dirk was good at it, and he knew it. He usually started slow, kissing and licking until Jake was panting and shivering. Not so, today. Maybe it was some sort of vengeance on the faceless intercom announcer, or maybe it was just because the day had been so utterly and completely shit that he wanted to reward himself with something he enjoyed. He took Jake deep almost at once, looking up at him through his eyelashes -- the damn angle was awful in here, and so was the fucking lighting. Still, Jake made a strangled noise and his fingers flexed and his eyes had pupils so big Dirk could barely see the green around them, which was definitely a good sign. He wrapped his hand around what of Jake he couldn't take and sucked, hard, bringing his other hand to cup Jake's balls. 

This was always the point where Jake got talky, and once again, he didn't disappoint. "Cheese and rice," he gasped, as Dirk kept working, "you're just a fine beautimous valentino, down there, aren't you?" So much for staying quiet. He was obviously trying, but his voice was definitely wavering on the edge of "talking normally," and maybe even louder than that. Dirk would have smirked at him, if his lips and tongue weren't otherwise occupied. "Would you stop that!" Jake scolded. "I can see it in your eyes, you know, when you get smug like -- ah -- " 

Good, then. If Jake was distracted from talking, it meant Jake was also distracted from the intercom, which Dirk could -- annoyingly -- still hear chiming outside the bathroom. The TSA, watch your bags, yadda yadda yadda. Who cared. He adjusted his grip and took in more, sucking, licking, feeling Jake's fingers tighten and loosen in his hair as Dirk hollowed his cheeks and tried his best to mind his damn teeth. That part, at least, was second nature by now. It was nice, the way Jake's fingers would clutch, and then almost stroke in apology. Jake kept right on fucking babbling and Dirk kept right on not listening and trying to ignore the way Jake's -- absurd, ridiculous -- words had a boner rising in his own pants. 

It was fortunate, then, that Jake came a moment later, so Dirk didn't have time to get well and truly worked up by it. He relaxed as Jake groaned and gasped, licked him clean, and -- resisting the great temptation to turn and spit his mouthful into the toilet -- swallowed once Jake looked coherent enough to grasp it. Which made Jake gasp and groan all over again, which made Dirk's boner jump. Should have spat it out after all, he thought, as he climbed back to his feet and tried to look like he _wasn't_ sporting a circus-sized tent in his jeans. He really, really should have worn looser jeans. 

"Dirk," Jake said, and the tension in his voice had melted away to leave something smooth and buttery and pleasant. Something that could probably make it through another -- Dirk checked his phone -- four hours before their flight. If he'd made it through six without a blowjob, making it through four after one would be child's play. "Dirk," he repeated, and Dirk looked up at him, even as he raised a hand to try and rake his hair back into place. Jake fumbled himself back into his boxers, buttoned his pants, and then rolled his fingers vaguely in the direction of Dirk's dick.

"No, I'm good," Dirk said, without the question even needing to be asked. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Unlatched the door, which swung open behind him, and reshouldered his bag. The mirror indicated his hair was even worse than expected, rumpled orange spikes sticking up in ways that definitely were not naturally gelled. And his damn brush was in his checked luggage. He fussed with it over the sink. The mundanity of the action itself was doing worlds for his arousal. Airline staff was supposed to be back at the counter at 5 AM, so he had like an hour to get himself presentable, coax down his urge to use cuss words, and try to look like a nice boy who just wanted to get to Honolulu. The hair … maybe he could make it work. 

"I really could …" Jake said as he stumbled -- almost tripping over his own feet -- out of the bathroom stall and stood next to Dirk. He examined himself closely in the mirror, then turned on the faucet just to splash his face with water. 

"How about this," Dirk said, already anticipating the six-hour flight that was going to follow the four-hour wait, and how worn his own nerves were going to be by the time they landed in Hawaii. "Once we're in the air, you can pay me back." 

For a minute, he thought maybe Jake was going to turn him down. But then that almost-smirk, the kind he got when you asked him a question he could respond to in movie quotes, spread across his face, and he grinned at his own reflection before slinging an arm around Dirk's shoulders, and -- Dirk was _certain_ \-- messing up his hair even more. 

"You've got yourself a friggin' bargain, Dirk Strider," he said. 

The most insulting part, Dirk decided later, was that Jake chose that moment to kiss him. Not because it was bad (which it wasn't), or because it was in a shitty airport bathroom, or even because Jake did it to keep him from complaining about his fucked up hair. (Which he absolutely did.) 

But because the _damn_ intercom woman piped up exactly half a second later.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite what I promised a friend I did not actually title this "The Time Jake English Got Head In An Airport Bathroom." 
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [stormsbourne!](http://stormsbourne.tumblr.com)


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